


Telling

by somegunemojis



Series: Tender Mercies [6]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Funerals, Gen, Vague Murder Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:41:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26089597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somegunemojis/pseuds/somegunemojis
Summary: His feet slip off the path, and he keeps falling.
Relationships: Bettino Tahan & Vivienne Sauvettere
Series: Tender Mercies [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893175





	Telling

**Author's Note:**

> Vivienne is a kickass young woman, and Bettino is a huge brat in mourning.

24 December, 2003 -- Verona, Italy

His mother has not made a sound since that last bitten off scream in the morgue on December 19th. Three days into it, Vivienne shows up, a stoic set to her chin, Sirus holding her hand. He almost doesn’t let them in, an uncharacteristic waxy look to the skin on his face, but the kid darts past the two of him and over to his mother. He stands rooted to the spot as he watches him reach for her frail hand, watches her eyes track the movement without any spark of recognition. She lifts her hand to take his tiny, chubby fingers in a feather-light grip, and then reaches up to trail the digits on her free hand through his golden, fluffy curls. It's nothing like his own dark, thick hair, but Bettino holds his breath, and Vivienne shifts her weight behind him like she wants to step forward and… and do something, anything. She’s a woman of action and cunning. It doesn’t help any of them here. 

Shoshanna’s hands fall back into her lap, and her blank gaze turns back to the window. Sirus tugs at her skirt mutely, and then turns his big eyes back to the pair of them. A rock sinks further into his gut, and suddenly his vision blurs. He hasn’t cried yet, and he won’t do it now, his hands coming up to almost violently wipe at his eyes. Vivienne puts a hand on his shoulder, and Srus rockets into his knees to cling to him. He’s not going to cry now. 

5 January, 2004 -- Verona, Italy

Seventeen days, he’s been skirting around like a ghost, dragging his mother out of bed to sit her by the window. Trying to get her to eat. Going to the police station, getting kicked out of the police station. Ignoring the calls of all of his friends. The police release his body when it’s clear they have no leads, and they bury what’s left of him almost a month late. The funeral is a small affair-- he has to plan it almost by himself, haphazardly gathering the small religious community, some of their neighbors. 

The day he turns eighteen, they finally get to bury his father. 

The weather is clear, but freezing. Windy. He has to accept condolences by himself, his mother standing slightly off to the side and staring at the empty skies to the south, her mouth pressed into a thin line that never wavers. Bettino’s eyes are dry, and they are surrounded by dark circles that haven’t disappeared since mid-December. He stands stiffly, and he accepts careful hugs of friends from school, old teachers, cousins he’s hardly met. Neighbors, the nosy old ladies from the kahal kodesh they attended in his earliest years, the sad eyed Rabbi that runs a touching but slightly empty ceremony. Throughout, Vivienne Sauvettere stands proud at his shoulder, and Sirus periodically fidgets next to him, occasionally reaching up to hold his shaking hand. The older girl watches every movement of every person like a hawk, like maybe she thinks she can protect him from something, after all this. He tries to feel grateful for the thought. 

Instead, it seems he can only focus on the fact that Felipe and Miranda Piccoli are nowhere to be seen. His father's partner with the Caito family, and his sweet daughter-- they're friendly enough for Bettino to babysit her, but not enough to come to the funeral?

It nags at him, just like the way Vivienne seems to be on guard nags at him. A sick feeling forms in his gut. As the mourners disperse, he turns to pick up Sirus and then hands him over to Vivienne, slinking over to put a hand on his mother’s elbow, with a soft, “Mama.” No response. He didn’t expect one. Carefully, he pulls on her elbow, over to the headstone, and he explains what he’d had written there, and why, what stone they used, who carved it. She stares at it placidly. He feels his eyes well with tears and angrily wipes them away, and then reaches out a hand to touch the rough stone. “He left us, mama.” 

Let love be the gravestone that lies upon my life. 

Vivienne steps forward, and he whirls around to face her, fists trembling. She looks him over, flicks her eyes to the freshly engraved stone in the crowded graveyard, and then looks at his mother. She settles one fine-boned hand on the older woman’s shoulder, and then watches him once more. “I can take her back, if you want to stay a while.” 

Wiping his eyes with his sleeve is quickly becoming unproductive, but with a brief hiccup, he nods. Her mouth is a grim line when he can force himself to look at her again, but her eyes are sad. He’s so angry he’s almost sick with it, and even more than that he is unimaginably, ground-shatteringly tired, and when she pulls him close with an arm over his shoulders, he settles his chin on her collarbone and then buries his face into the crook of her neck, wrapping his arms around her waist and holding her there for a moment. He’s finally taller than her, even in her functional little kitten heels. The realization pushes a wet laugh out of him, and he pulls away with a quiet sniffle. “Sorry, I got um, snot on you.” Her unimpressed stare makes him duck his head, and his gaze locks on the gravestone again. It’s hard to look away. “I would. Appreciate it. I think I need a minute alone.”

With one last worried glance at him, she draws away and smooths her expression, carefully taking Shoshanna’s arm and pulling her to her car, Sirus in tow. Bettino sits out in the cold for hours, staring at the grey stone that marks the final resting place of his father, and watching the clouds darken overhead. He only gets to his feet and shuffles home after the sun starts to go down, casting long shadows in the graveyard that look like greedy hands. The horizon is deepening from pink to purple by the time he gets home, and Vivienne is lingering uncomfortably in their kitchen, surveying the freakish state of neatness he’s left the place in. Sirus is asleep on the couch, curled up next to his own mother. Bettino wavers, not sure how to thank her, not sure how to open his mouth, and without missing a beat she just scoops her son into her arms and marches up to him. Places a careful hand on his cold-numbed cheek. Murmurs, “Call me if you need anything. Anything.”

He thinks about his father. About her. He thinks about Felipe Piccoli, and how he didn’t show up today, and he thinks about the Caito and what they may have done to their own man. And he nods mutely, watching her slip into the evening.

2 February, 2004 -- Verona, Italy

A month later, he’s been hitting the bars hard when he finally calls her. 

It’s late when she arrives at the bar he’s sitting on the steps of, smoking a cigarette and holding a cool bottle of water to his swelling eye. He’s half drunk, and he knows he’s solved it all, but he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s supposed to do. She comes to a stop a few feet from him, and only then does he glance up at her, his face gaunt in the street light. She looks… tired. She looks a little sad, behind all that armor. 

Kids have to grow up sometime. 

He holds out his half-smoked cigarette to her, and she takes it carefully and puts it out, and then pulls him to his feet. Bettino’s balance is too good to send him toppling, really, but he leans their shoulders close anyway. They walk, for a little, before she leads him down to the metro station. He knows he sounds like an asshole when he asks, “What, no fancy car tonight?” 

Vivienne only gives him a droll look, a dry, “you seemed like you needed some time to think when you called me,” and they sit in silence for a moment on the platform waiting for the train. He fidgets, prodding at the bruise over his eye, and she watches him attentively, waiting for him to spill his guts to her like he always does. 

So, he gives the lady what she wants, unscrewing the cap of the water bottle with a sigh. “I’m leaving.” He can’t look at her, because he’s not sure which expression he’ll find on her face. Surprise, hurt-- perhaps nothing at all, just the blank mask she wears when she’s not sure how she’s supposed to feel. A long drink, and then he continues. “My mother is going to live with some relatives. I, uh… Enlisted, in the Army.” His foot taps restlessly. The train is coming. 

She stands, and pulls him to his feet with a long sigh. He follows her onto the train, and they take a seat in the empty car, and neither of them speak until they’re clattering along the tracks. She glances at him, and her voice is quiet when she asks, “When do you leave?” It’s hard to look at her. Crossing his arms and staring at the yawning blackness outside of the windows seems easier. 

“The seventh.”

“That’s … that’s in five days, Bettino.” Her voice is hard, and… brittle, maybe. It makes him hunch, and bunch his shoulders up around his ears, like maybe he can hide from the unsaid accusation: were you going to leave without saying anything? Are you never coming back? Her hand meets his elbow, and he finally lifts his gaze to hers. Cold steel, and a wrinkle of confusion between her brows. 

He wasn’t going to tell her. He wasn’t going to say anything at all, just in case-- Bettino isn’t sure which outcome would be worse, honestly. Finding out she knew, finding out she’d kept it from him, finding out that perhaps she’d even had a hand in it, or finding out she didn’t know anything at all, and putting her in danger with the knowledge. But the words spill from his mouth in a rush, his voice lowered to a harsh whisper.

“Did you know?”

Vivienne doesn’t draw away from him, the confusion on her face only growing before she manages to smother that too, her hand still light against his arm. Something grows tight in his throat. “Know… that you were leaving?” 

Already shaking his head before the question fully leaves her mouth, he snaps out, “Did you know it was the Caito that had my dad murdered, Vivienne?” 

The expression on her face shifts so quickly that he almost doesn’t catch it. Cold shock, disbelief, perhaps even horror. It takes her a few seconds to wrangle that back into nothingness, but the fact that she tries to hide it proves it to him: she had no idea. It gathers in his throat like acid. He wants so badly to be angry at someone, but it can’t be her. Her only crime, in this instance, is ignorance. “Are you sure?” The question doesn’t come out like she thinks it’s not possible, it comes out low; like she knows that just asking it is dangerous. It probably is, especially for her.

He shrugs one shoulder. “Yes. I’ve been… you know.” Getting involved with mob politics had been something he’d always been careful to avoid, sometimes having to resort to every single trick in his little book. But his father and his best friend--her--were both in the life. And he’d learned. 

Staring straight ahead for a moment, she contemplates this information. He appreciates that she doesn’t try to capitulate, or beg him to believe her. She doesn’t burst into any rushed explanations, or a frenzy of questions, just the single, quiet ‘are you sure’, and then she thinks it over for herself. They wait. He feels like the alcohol is about to give him his first case of motion sickness. 

Eventually, he speaks again. “Do you know who it would have been?” 

There’s been a sneaking suspicion in him for a while, and the look she levels him with then means she knows, at the very least, that he _thinks_ he knows who it was. Her lips purse, and she shakes her head. The expression on her face is, as always, nearly fucking impossible to read. His stop is coming up, so he stands. “I can’t stay here, Viv. If I do, I’m going to-- I’m going to do something I’ll regret, you know?” He’s going to do something stupid. Something dangerous. He needs to get out of the city that snuffed out the light in both of his parents, before it breaks him too. And so, he’s going to run.

Vivienne Sauvettere remains seated, her pale eyes watching him in the bright light of the metro. Softly, almost sadly, almost wistfully, she says: “I know.” He has to look away from her, because he’s afraid that she can see right through him. The gesture is pointless, because she always can. Bettino makes to leave, but she grabs his sleeve just before he steps on the train. “Let me take you to the airport. When you go.” 

She doesn’t say please. 

He nods, and pulls his arm away from her almost gently. “I’ll text you. I promise.” She takes her seat once more, and he steps off the train just before the doors snap shut, and then watches the yawning tunnel for a long time after the cars have disappeared.


End file.
